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First time accepted submitter awaissoft writes "There's big, then there's really big, and then there's colossal, which might be a good word to use when describing a near 46,000-pound Lego X-Wing that made a triumphant debut Thursday in New York's Times Square. The full-size replica, about 42 times the size of the Lego Star Wars X-Wing set available on store shelves, celebrates the debut of Cartoon Network's The Yoda Chronicles, which premieres on May 29 at 8 p.m. It took a small army of 32 Lego master builders, housed in a facility in the Czech Republic, to build the 45,980-pound, or 23-ton, Lego ship. It stands 11 feet high and 43 feet long, and contains more than 5 million Lego pieces."

Maybe starwars nerds have no problem with the wide assortment of whimisically named technology in the movies, but engineering nerds like myself are somewhat annoyed by the totally counterintuitive and useless name of 's-foil', which only a starwars nerd would recognize. For the rest of the world, the engineering term wings are a better description. Of course, in about 30 seconds, my computer's going to catch fire and begin vomitting angry noises as it's assaulted by millions of angry Lucas-lovers beating th

So during the Battle of Hoth when they were seen in atmospheric flight... they were purely ornamental?

Since they (along with most other spacefaring ships) were shown taking off and landing vertically, yeah, pretty much. Actually, the silly canonical explanation is they were for heat dissipation and "stabilization", just like the TIE fighter's "radiators" (which are clearly useless as airfoils).

Though given this thread is arguing engineering principles in one of the most unscientific major sci-fi series in recent history, I think we can all safely claim various levels of pathetic nerddom. Sigh.

Well take off and landing is one thing (Not needing an airport infrastructure), but for actual battle in an atmosphere, I would expect wings would give you an advantage. Save power on lift and more power towards forward speed. Otherwise you will need the thrust shooting at an angle to keep the ship in the air. Also banking and and turning would be easier too. In space you wouldn't need wings, but stabilizers... however the wings on an X-Wing would be huge for what is needed.

Yeah that's something like the retcon they went with. Lucas has said that the original intent there was for Han to spout fancy-sounding nonsense and Obi Wan to catch him at it. There was no explicit dialog of Obi Wan calling him out, we were just supposed to be able to tell from the actors' expressions. The idea was to further set up Han as this con man type figure and also show that Obi Wan is pretty worldly himself. Unfortunately bad directorial choices about cutting between cameras ruined the effect.

From what I have hard, the Lego model makers use solvent to chemically weld the pieces together.

When they can get a legal permit, they use GBL [wikipedia.org] -- which unfortunately would turn into the drug GHB when you add water. Otherwise they use MEK [wikipedia.org]. GBL is believed by Lego to be less toxic than MEK. (Well.. you are not supposed to drink either, so this is about skin contact and fumes.)

Also, totally visible from my desk, which for once made having offices in Times Square not suck.

You have a job where you can see times square from your desk and you say it sucks? I would trade your view for mine of a black topped parking lot and a building on the other side of it for yours any day of the week, so would millions of others who don't get to see times square of all places.

You have a job where you can see times square from your desk and you say it sucks? I would trade your view for mine of a black topped parking lot and a building on the other side of it for yours any day of the week, so would millions of others who don't get to see times square of all places.

You need to appreciate what you have.

And you what you have. I would take you up on that trade in a heartbeat.

The only plus is that I moved to the opposite side of the building so I'm not facing the giant flashing Nasdaq billboard all day long. There are flashing lights everywhere, it's very crowded, and the food is mediocre and expensive. I've worked in a few different parts of Manhattan and this is by far the shittiest.

Also, totally visible from my desk, which for once made having offices in Times Square not suck.

You have a job where you can see times square from your desk and you say it sucks? I would trade your view for mine of a black topped parking lot and a building on the other side of it for yours any day of the week, so would millions of others who don't get to see times square of all places.

You need to appreciate what you have.

Lucky! The pair of ye. The only view I have is from whatever webcam I happen to browse to.

I work near Penn Station and it's pretty terrible but not nearly as bad asTimes Square. The obnoxious lights, the swarms of tourists, the constant noise. I know a few people who work overlooking Times Square and while it's a nice place to visit, you wouldn't want to deal with that every day. Plus to top it all off, everything around there is a tourist trap. There's practically no good food around (it's almost all chains since not many small places can afford the rent) and all of the prices are ridiculously

Let me explain to you how this works: you see, the corporations finance Slashdot, and then Slashdot goes out... and the corporations sit there in their... in their corporation buildings, and... and, and see, they're all corporation-y... and they make money.

As mentioned it's been glued or a metal substructure. At 23 tons it's no easy pieceto move; displaying it will always be an effort and great expense. I see it beingvery easy to break (not being involved in it's construction) as it has a largeunsupported extension.

Seems the editors couldn't figure out submitter "awaisoft" is a pissant blogger on the awaisoft.com domainThere have been many articles about this around the Net today, and o fall of them, this one is by far the worst.For fuck sake, the entire blog posting was copied and pasted verbatim into the summary.

Actual sense of scale here: House Built From LEGO [thecontaminated.com] Helps that it had a flat roof and mostly bare walls on its breadbox shape. But still that's a heckuva lot of bricks that went into the thing.